Giving Compass' Take:

• Carolyn Phenicie explores the impact that closing nuclear plants has on school districts, and why small districts are at particular risk.

• How can your community prepare for the financial burden that economic change can bring? How can donors help school districts proactively plan for a reduction in budget?

• Read more about the demise of U.S. nuclear power.

The Davis-Besse nuclear plant is one of nine plants across the country scheduled to close by 2025, on top of seven that have closed since 2013.

Small school districts always suffer when large employers leave town, but for those home to the country’s 59 nuclear plants, the stakes are higher. Largely owing to competition from cheap natural gas obtained by fracking, up to half the country’s plants could close by 2030, experts warn. And once plants are shuttered, it’s impossible to immediately replace them with new facilities, as the elaborate environmental cleanups required can take between eight and 60 years.

Closing nuclear plants is nothing new, but the sheer number of sites set to be shuttered in coming years has left a record number of school leaders facing a worrying fiscal fate.

The industry traces its problems back to 2008, said Matthew Wald, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying association. The recession that year dampened some industrial demand for power overall, but the bigger challenge was the development of fracking and the availability of cheaper, more plentiful natural gas.

When the Maine Yankee plant in Wiscasset closed in the mid-1990s, tax revenue fell by half. Student enrollment, declining across Maine, has fallen dramatically in Wiscasset: Graduating classes have shrunk from about 135 in the mid-1980s to about 35 last year, Martin-Savage said.

Ultimately, the impacts to towns and schools are more than financial, officials say. Employees at the plants, working in highly paid, specialized jobs, have to move to find comparable work, sparking an exodus of neighbors, friends and key school supporters.

Read the full article about the impact of closing nuclear plants on small-school districts by Carolyn Phenicie at The 74.